


i saw a door to something

by greenbucket



Category: South Park
Genre: Blizzards & Snowstorms, Coming In Pants, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Power Outage, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:36:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23180086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: On the day of moving, there’s some heavier snow than usual forecast, but Stan isn’t going to worry about it. What’s a little snow, after all?
Relationships: Kyle Broflovski/Stan Marsh
Comments: 17
Kudos: 218





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuchi/gifts).



When winter properly hits, Kyle finally gives up the commuting to work schtick for good. Stan’s actually impressed how long he sticks with it, considering how much he goes on about shitty traffic and bad drivers in the snow literally every day. And having to wake up early to get to work on time.

Plus, Stan knows Kyle’s mom is still on his ass about wasting his potential living back home in the first place, no matter how much Stan might appreciate having his best friend back from college and sticking around for company in their lame ass town while he figures his own shit out.

The specific time in question he’s hanging at the Broflovskis’, watching TV with Ike while he waits for Kyle to get home so they can watch TV together instead. Kyle is running late. Not for the first time. It’s so much not-for-the-first-time, in fact, that Mrs Broflovski has started leaving Stan be instead of jumping into host-mode, though that might be because Stan has just generally been spending a lot of time around their’s lately.

Whatever. What’s a dude meant to do when he’s suddenly in the same place as his best friend again for the first time in years?

When Kyle does barge through the door, the stomping and clattering as he takes off all his outside clothes tells Stan – and Ike, from the way he braces for impact – most of what he needs to know. The rest of it is clear from the way Kyle walks into the living room and declares, to the house in general or Stan specifically, who knows, “I give up. If I have to do that stupid journey one more time I’m walking into fucking traffic.”

“ _Kyle Broflovski_ , you watch your language,” Mrs Broflovski calls from the kitchen, scandalised.

Somehow this mostly breaks both Kyle’s bad mood and the apprehension of it , the three of them snickering like they’re kids. Kyle still looks tired, though, and sort of pissed off. And very much wearing his semi-formal office clothes, which is something Stan can’t not _notice_ , every time. Just weird, still, to see Kyle out of a t-shirt and jeans.

Kyle flops down in the space Stan and Ike left between them on the couch, resting one arm mostly on the backrest with a sigh.

“Yeah, Kyle, watch your language,” Stan echoes, super late.

Kyle grins for real, smacks the back of Stan’s head and says, quiet enough his mom won’t hear, “Kiss my ass.” And then, mystified and at a normal volume, “What in the fuck are you guys watching?”

“ _Kyle Broflovski!_ ”

They don’t talk about not-commuting for the rest of the evening, but if Stan did hindsight as a thing, it would probably be the start.

**-**

Some weeks later, Stan is (kind of against his will and mostly at Kyle’s insistence) on Kyle’s floor, filling in applications for jobs he doesn’t even know if he gives a shit about, while Kyle clacks away on his computer. Work that’s relevant to his degree sounds unbearable, Stan is finding, but so is the thought of having done four years of class for nothing.

He rifles through all the papers Kyle has stacked on his floor, sure that Kyle had said one of them was his resume, free for Stan to be deeply inspired by. Not that they have much experience in common other than a degree, but Stan has no clue how to even pretend he cares in resume-speak so he’ll take anything.

Instead of a neat list of experience and qualifications, though, he finds a bunch of papers with a scribbled mess of numbers, calculations, and the words ‘rent’, ‘income’ and ‘monthly budget’. There are dates for viewings listed on one, all of them crossed out, which is pretty much as much as Stan needs to know to piece the whole thing together.

Kyle hasn’t telepathically picked up on what’s going on to confirm or deny it, so Stan asks, “Uh, dude?”

“Yeah?” Kyle replies, clearly not paying attention – until he spins his chair round and looks down at Stan and sees the papers and then very clearly _is_ paying attention. “Oh,” he says. “Uh.”

“Rent? Monthly budget?” Stan asks, so that he won’t ask something like _why didn’t you talk to me about this_. He leafs through all the papers and ads so he won’t have to look at Kyle. And so he can find the resume and get back on track, obviously.

“Yeah,” says Kyle again, and the way his knee had gone all jumpy in the corner of Stan’s eye is a strong tell. “I found a place nearer work. It’s a shitty place in a shitty neighbourhood, but it’s a studio apartment, so I’ll be budgeting, dude.”

“Cool.”

“You knew I was looking, right?”

“No.”

Stan finds Kyle’s meticulous resume and sets it aside. Starts stacking Kyle’s no-longer-secret apartment search papers in a neater pile.

“Oh. Well, you’ll be free from listening to me bitch about traffic all the time.”

“Yep,” says Stan. There’s a gap where he should’ve shot something back, something funny, and there’s a sinking feeling in his stomach. It doesn’t make sense, because he’s happy for Kyle that he won’t have to commute so much now, but knowing that doesn’t stop him feeling it. He says again, “Cool. That’s really cool.”

“It... is?” Kyle agrees, or asks, or something. He sighs and starts nudging Stan’s leg with his foot, gentle and persistent. “Look, I guess I forgot to mention it, okay? Anyway, there’s a few weeks til moving. And I still have to pack and transport all my shit. In my car.”

Stan can spot a Kyle-olive-branch when he’s offered one and he really wishes he could resist. Like, Kyle doesn’t _owe_ it to him to stay around, but they’re supposed to be best friends; Stan’s experiences are hardly overflowing with close friendships but he’s pretty sure it would make sense to at least mention this kind of thing. He can count on one hand the days in the last few months since graduation that they haven’t hung out for at least a bit, so this must’ve taken some serious sneaking around on Kyle’s part.

Stan takes the apology though, obviously, even if the whole situation still stings and is sort of hollowing out his whole stomach area. He picks up the resume to read through for real. And it’s possibly the flimsiest excuse ever, but they both accept it when Stan says, “I’ll get the day off to come with, then? To stop you road-raging.”

How Stan will get back home if they take Kyle’s car is the glaring hole in that plan, but they can sort that when they get to it.

Kyle gives one last apologetic nudge, then spins back round to his clacking. “Absolutely.” A pause. “To carry everything up the stairs, too?”

This time the sinking in Stan’s stomach is the different, less painful kind. Hauling boxes is the worst kind of exercise there is. “How many floors up are you gonna be?”

Kyle waves the question away, _way_ too airy. “Not many.”

**-**

On the day of moving, there’s some heavier snow than usual forecast, but Stan isn’t going to worry about it. What’s a little snow, after all? Anyway, it’s not scheduled til later in the day, so he’ll get Kyle all settled and then head back home and miss it all, probably.

“Are you sure?” his mom asks that morning, watching as he shoves breakfast items down as fast as possible. He’d spent too long fussing with his clothes, with his lame hair, with wondering if they would want to listen to music or the radio on the way. It’s all dumb stuff to worry about – it’s just him and Kyle, going for a drive. And now he’s running late.

“I’m sure,” he says, whinier than his mom deserves. She didn’t make him late.

His mom’s mouth turns down at the corners and she gives him a, “Hey, watch your tone with me,” but she just seems more concerned than anything, which makes Stan feel worse.

He’s already feeling twitchy and weird and _wired_ about the entire thing of Kyle moving. Technically, he slept nine hours the night before but his brain feels like it was three. His mom takes the coffee pot over to the sink. Subtle.

God. Stan just wants to _go_ already. Get it over with.

Breakfast thoroughly crammed down his throat, a promise to his mom to not drive into a snowdrift and to text when he’s on his way back, and a shouted bye to his dad out of the way, he begins the very short walk to Kyle’s.

It’s cold, sort of drizzly, and quiet. It’s probably just that no one wants to brave such godawful weather, but until Mr Broflovski answers the door Stan can’t help but feel like the quiet is the whole fucking town in suspense.

And then he can see all of Kyle’s stuff stacked up along the wall in the hallway and the day’s just normal-weird again. Kyle’s moving. Stan was there just the evening before, helping stack all of that stuff.

“Is that Stan?” Mrs Broflovski yells from some other room as Kyle runs down the stairs in his socks, hand squeaking along the bannister, almost like when they were kids. Stan’s half expecting to be offered a plastic tumbler of juice; instead, Mr Broflovski just asks how he’s doing and, before Stan can answer, tells him to take his shoes off if he’s coming in, all while Kyle makes faces over his shoulder.

They should’ve anticipated it, but moving things out of the house and into Kyle’s car takes about twice as long as predicted. After it’s finally done, though, there’s no more stalling.

Stan heads out to the car, while Kyle’s mom insists on hugging Kyle goodbye tightly at the door and kissing his cheeks. His ears go bright red, but he does actually hug back some. She hands a stack of items (probably enough food to last Kyle a week) while Stan huddles by the side of his car, unsure why he hasn’t already got back in it and out of the wet and cold.

And also gathering a fuckton of comments to make about the whole ordeal, which he releases the literal second he and Kyle are alone in the car.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Kyle, twisting in his seat to balance the probably-food boxes on top of the bits and pieces in the back seat that they hadn’t managed to fit in the trunk. When he turns back, he’s only got one massive candle in a jar in his hand, which he leaves on the dashboard.

“Let’s go,” he says, after shooting a look that dares Stan to say something.

Stan definitely _would_ dare, but it feels a little unnecessary; they’ve got hours together to go yet.

**-**

Kyle’s new apartment building, after they pick up the keys and actually get there, is unattractive, grey, and eight floors high.

Stan looks up at where the building blends with the equally grey, almost-snow sky, and knows Kyle’s on the eighth floor. Knows the elevator, if it exists at all, is probably a death trap. Feels that shit in his bones.

Kyle, when Stan looks over, looks somehow even less apologetic than Stan had been expecting. “Welcome to my crib?”

“I will literally fuck your mom,” Stan replies, and starts hauling boxes.

The apartment, after they manage to unlock the door and drag their slightly sweating selves over the threshold, is definitely small and a bit crappy. It’s literally one medium-sized space, with two different types of lino flooring to indicate bedroom versus kitchen, and a tiny bathroom walled off in one corner. There’s a double bed frame plus mattress, a rug that should probably be burned, and one sloping stack of shelves.

“Right,” Kyle says, placing his gift candle and a box on the nearest kitchen counter before coming back to rest an elbow on Stan and survey the room. “Home sweet home?”

Stan says, very completely not sarcastic, “Sure,” and slips away, heading back down to get more boxes.

Snow starts falling for real – rather than just the threat it’s been all morning – just after their second trip up the stairs and doesn’t stop. It’s thick and heavy and the wind is starting to batter them both a little, but Stan just is going to focus on the task at hand instead of like, all that.

Inside, where it isn’t snowing, Kyle chucks off his outdoor wear and steps over several boxes and a suitcase to reach the bed. He stretches his arms up, flops back, and groans at the ceiling. Stan can see his stomach, where his t-shirt doesn’t cover.

“Thank God that’s over.”

Stan takes his own coat and shit off and perches on a sturdy-looking box instead of the bed. “Are you really going to unpack _now_?” he asks. Kyle had explained his whole plan to achieve the most efficient move possible on the drive over, which had sounded to Stan on the one hand sensible enough and on the other overall batshit and neurotic.

“Obviously,” Kyle says, still to the ceiling, t-shirt still riding up. “Like. In a minute.”

“Okay.”

There’s the sound of the wind getting louder outside, the sound of some cars crunching through snow, and not much else.

Maybe now is when Stan should leave to head back home. Stan can start, “Time to head out, looks like,” and then Kyle can be all, “Hey, thanks for the help, dude,” and Stan can be like, “Sure, no worries. See you around, right?” and maybe they’ll hug and then Stan will drive Kyle’s car home, alone, since Kyle’s decided he doesn’t need it in the city.

And then they can live in two separate places and end up living two separate lives and the unthinkable will be the reality all over again and they’ll barely talk for another four years, just like college. Stan doesn’t want that, but lately it feels like maybe he doesn’t know _what_ he wants.

He claps his hands on his knees, starts to stand, and starts to say, “Time to–”

At the same time, Kyle contentedly tells the ceiling, “You can come and stay over.”

They both pause, and then Kyle sits up and Stan sits down and they both ask, “What?”; only difference being that Stan gets in quicker with, “Nothing. Wasn’t saying anything.”

“Well, I was saying that you can come and stay over,” Kyle continues after a moment of suspicious squinting. When Stan doesn’t say something fast enough, he shrugs, maybe self-consciously. “When I’m all moved in, you know?”

There’s really no room for a couch in the apartment. Not one that Stan could sleep on without bending his whole spine out of place. They did it – still do it – all the time, but the facts are that there’s only the one bed for sharing.

To avoid that topic entirely, Stan replies, “Okay but I’m not sleeping on that rug, dude. Sleeping bag or not.”

Kyle rolls his eyes, picks the nearest box and starts ripping off tape. “Fine. Get it shampooed or whatever if it bothers you that much.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Feel free, asshole.”

Kyle abandons his box without emptying it and pulls another over, rips off a fresh strip of tape which did _not_ need to be ripped off that rough. Stan thought they were just kidding with each other, but maybe Kyle’s actually annoyed.

It’s not even Kyle’s rug, and the way Kyle’s reacting kind of stings, but Stan doesn’t want to fight. “Dude–”

Kyle shakes his head and shoulders come down from around his ears. He makes an aborted move to chew on his nails, though it’s a habit Stan could’ve sworn Kyle had fully kicked years ago; Stan watches him carefully squish the tape in his hand tinier and tinier instead. 

“Stick around and figure out how to get the heat going?” Kyle asks once it’s as tiny as it’ll get, a peace offering maybe and at least a clear signal that whatever bullshit that was is over for the time being. “It’s freezing in here.”

**-**

It’s some indeterminable time later when Stan’s mom texts _are u on ur way back???_

Stan’s phone says it’s been almost four hours, which cannot be real. There is absolutely no way he and Kyle have been sorting through the same shit that they sorted through only days earlier in order to pack, making the same jokes and following the same lame reminiscences, for four hours.

Except they probably (evidently) have. They haven’t got much unpacking done, is what’s for certain. Most of Kyle’s nerdy books, stacked on the floor, some balled-up blankets thrown on the bed. A pot or pan or two. A shitload of miscellaneous sketches, stories, notes they’d passed in class, photos parents had forced them to stand still for. Stan doesn’t know how to start to examine why Kyle would’ve taken those specifically with him from his childhood home.

“Your mom?” Kyle asks, pausing with a scrap of paper in hand, mid-reminiscence.

“Your mom,” Stan guffaws, automatic. “But yeah, it’s actually my mom. She’s asking when am I coming back.”

Kyle puts the paper down. “Oh. Right.”

The wind rattles through the apartment like some kind of reminder that just because Stan doesn’t really want to drive home – doesn’t want to leave – doesn’t mean wind creates conditions that aren’t actually drivable. He can only assume the forecasted ‘some snow’ has fallen by now, too, but he heads to the window to check anyway.

Outside, what has fallen is considerably more than ‘some snow’. The wind is practically howling now he’s up close to the windows, making the still-falling snow into what’s practically a blizzard. There is _so_ much snow.

Stan has really fucked this one up. There’s no way he can drive in that, especially not in Kyle’s craptastic car. “Shit, dude. It’s a fucking snowstorm out there.”

“Really?” says Kyle, joining Stan at the window. He stares for a moment, eyes wide, and then agrees, “Shit.”

And as if the whole thing isn’t daunting enough in itself, then the power goes out.

For a moment they stand in the complete dark, silent, their reflections gone from the window. No light, the hum of the heating system shut off. Now Stan _definitely_ definitely won’t be getting back home today, which means spending the night. He feels a trickle of anxiety start. The kind that makes the walls close in, makes him puke, makes him want to bolt like he can escape it when it’s his own brain going nuts.

“Are you _kidding_ me,” Kyle asks of the dark apartment, of the dark street in front of them, and like that the anxiety wanes. Stan isn’t dealing with this power outage shit alone and things between him and Kyle don’t _have_ to be weird; they’ll be fine.

Pressing his nose to the glass, Stan can possibly see some lights in the distance but none near them. All the surrounding apartments, convenience stores, and street lights are in darkness.

“Guess I’m not heading back home today.”

“No shit.”

“No clean underwear,” Stan muses. “No spare clothes. No toothbrush.”

“Borrow mine,” Kyle replies, already impatient. “And text your mom so she knows you’re not dead.”

Stan isn’t going to think about sharing any of those things. He does text his mom, though, to say there’s a blizzard. She’s appropriately concerned up until he manages to communicate he’s actually still at Kyle’s and they have no heat but enough food for six, at which point she becomes disappointed in him.

 _do u even have torchs w working bttries???????_ she texts

“Do we have torches?” Stan asks, still looking down at his phone, rapidly dying in the battery department itself.

“Nope,” says Kyle, and Stan expects him to sound upset, at least a little stressed, but he sounds like he’s grinning. Stan looks up, mildly blinded by a flame right in his face; when Kyle stops being a dick and steps back, Stan recognises a lighter in one of his hands and in the other, the scented candle from Mrs Broflovski.

It’s actually kind of smart, considering otherwise they’d have no light at all, but it’s also, for some reason, the funniest shit Stan has encountered in weeks. “Holy _shit_.”

“Don’t,” Kyle warns, candle wobbling dangerously in his hands as he regains control. “Don’t make me laugh until this is on like, a flatish surface.”

Ignoring that completely, Stan tries not to actually produce tears. He snorts, “Your fucking _vanilla_ _scented candle_ ,” and in doing so blows out the flame, plunging them back into darkness.

“Jesus _God_ , Stan.”

Eventually, with a lot of wheezing plus at least a minute with Kyle literally doubled over and Stan in tears, they recover from that debacle. Stan sits a reasonable distance away on the bed while Kyle lights the candle again and puts it safely on a small stool that’s acting as a bedside cabinet. It doesn’t give much light, but it’s enough to see that the apartment is sort of a mess.

“Food?” Stan asks hopefully.

“And then carry on unpacking,” Kyle agrees.

**-**

An hour and a bit later, Stan has put his outdoor coat back on and he’s still fucking freezing. Sitting on the bed rather than the floor, to avoid floor drafts, is doing absolutely nothing. Stan’s trusty battery radio, which he’d optimistically brought with to soundtrack the whole experience, is losing signal and dying in an eclectic, fun cycle.

“Maybe we should stop trying to unpack, dude,” he says, watching how Kyle is shivering so hard, and the candle is doing such a bad job lighting the place, that it takes twice as long as it should to put another book on the shelf. He has a very specific plan for shelving, which apparently Stan is deliberately not understanding.

Kyle, in the mood that he is, won’t be swayed easily. “No. I’ll never get round to it if we don’t do it now.”

Stan can’t help but think this is bullshit. “My balls are ready to fall off.”

“Like mine aren’t?”

If Stan was warmer and less tired, maybe he would feel as strange and confused about the idea as he did earlier, but instead he’s cold and surprisingly exhausted from just moving boxes and the day’s gradually dawning realisation that he’s going to really, _really_ miss having Kyle around. So he kicks off the shoes he’d put back on for warmth, kicks off his jeans, and crawls backwards fully onto Kyle’s now-sheeted-and-pillowed mattress, pulling every blanket in reach over himself.

He curls up under the blankets and warms up a little, watching Kyle shiver away over his books for a minute or two, both of them quiet besides the crackly radio and screaming wind outside. He lets himself notice how Kyle’s hair is growing out, lets himself notice other things too and feel however he wants about it.

It’s nice.

“Dude,” he says, when watching gets painful and just imagining still being outside the blankets is getting counterproductive to warming up.“Come save your balls over here with me.”

Kyle looks over and his face does something weird that makes Stan’s chest go twisty – but then it’s gone. Kyle puts the book down, shrugs off his coat and jeans too, gets in bed, under the blankets. All in one go, no stopping.

They’re lying side by side under the blankets, staring at the ceiling and not even like – close together the way Stan had been imagining. For warmth reasons, and because Stan is letting himself feel things as they come so he can’t ignore the fact he _had_ been anticipating they’d be closer.

It’s dumb as shit, too, because they’re both still shivering slightly and the whole idea was to save their balls, not semi-save them.

Stan opens his mouth to say something along the lines of _dude, we need to huddle for warmth here instead of leaving room for Jesus_ , but what comes out is, “You didn’t tell me you were looking to move. Like, actually looking.”

They’re sharing a bed, so Stan can feel the breath Kyle lets out, a long, deep sigh. “Yeah, I didn’t.”

Stan wants to ask why but he really can’t get it out, can imagine the plaintive sound of it and feel his jaw clamping shut. This sucks so bad.

Kyle says, “It wasn’t about you. My parents are– you know. Great, but.”

“Okay,” says Stan, trying really hard to not feel stupid and self-centred. He feels really stupid and self-centred.

“You didn’t really keep in contact,” Kyle says eventually, like that’s any kind of continuation of his point or an answer. “After high school.”

Stan can’t argue with that, though. “Yeah, I didn’t.” Looking back, he doesn’t really know why. Different colleges, different places. Things had been busy to start with, not even in the fun way everyone had told him to expect, and then Kyle hadn’t kept in touch the way Stan expected. They couldn’t be in each other’s pockets like they were before, or like they were starting to be again now. The gaps between talking had got longer and harder to fill. Easier and safer to let what was going to happen, happen, maybe.

“You didn’t either,” he adds.

“Yeah, I guess not,” Kyle agrees. “Guess I didn’t first.”

Stan feels something in him resist that because like, _maybe_ , yeah, but who’s to say who backed off first? He doesn’t want Kyle taking all the credit for something _he_ let drift, too. It was Stan’s choice just as much, to not reach out. They were something they both chose to drop for a few years and, sort of fucked though it might be, he kind of wants to keep that, for wrong or right. Stan hasn’t ever felt like he’s really _chosen_ a lot of things in life, or a lot of people.

He turns on his side to look at Kyle, get him to do the same so Stan can try and articulate even some of that shit, only to find he’s the one doing the mirroring: Kyle’s already on his side, looking. The unexpectedness of it, when he’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts, makes Stan jump.

“What?”

He has to laugh at himself a little. “I didn’t know you were right there.”

“Oh, dude. Sorry.” Kyle is facing away from the candle on the stool, making it hard to see his face.

Stan settles down, getting comfortable, and says, “No, it’s fine. Stay.”

They’re really lying so close now, knee to knee and sharing the same pillow. The radio cuts out and stays silent.

The stupid fucking candle is making it feel romantic. Making _Stan_ feel romantic, and feel things about choosing. It sucks so, so bad. Stan wishes he could go back to before he’d let himself feel things as they came, and before he started, just now, connecting them all.

In the stupid fucking guttering candlelight, Stan can only really see that Kyle’s eyes are open and that he’s looking at him. Which is pretty distracting – by and large Stan wouldn’t call himself an eye man, whatever that means, but Kyle’s eyes are like, nice eyes. Looking at each other is also probably a good step, though, because they’re talking, for real, for the first time in years.

When they came back home, they’d just carried on like there hadn’t been a four year gap, but there had been. Maybe there will be again, though why they’re lying so close if they’re going to fuck off out of each other’s lives again is a mystery to Stan. He definitely wouldn’t choose it. It’s not like they’re actually trying to huddle now, to get warm so they can sleep or anything. Stan is really, really tired, but he couldn’t sleep just yet. Still too cold, for one, and for another:

“We’re friends now, right?” he asks. There’s no need to talk quietly, in Kyle’s apartment just the two of them, the wind loud against the windows but under all the blankets it’s starting to get cosy. He feels like the situation calls for it, though. “Still?”

“Always, dude.”

Close enough, Stan figures, to what he’s feeling. To what he wants. He closes the distance and kisses him.

It’s Kyle. They’re kissing. As newly realised as a deep interest in the concept might be, Stan is fully not surprised that it’s pretty great.

At first, Kyle kisses back as gently as Stan started, tentative and almost chaste, but then he cups Stan’s face and Stan’s slipping in some tongue before he even thinks about it. Kyle’s breath catches and he’s plastered along Stan’s front and it’s good, it’s _so_ good, but there’s a frantic edge to it that Stan’s pretty sure they don’t need.

Stan wants to do all the things, obviously. Of course. But when Kyle’s hands move from Stan’s face to his shoulders and his back, and when the way Kyle seems to want them to be kissing is pulling Stan like, out of the moment because he’s having to focus on when he’s next going to get a proper breath, it’s too much.

There’s no rush, after all. There’s a blizzard of sorts ranging around them, there are no roommates or parents or siblings to walk in on them. They’ve never done this before, not together. They can take all the time they need.

Pulling back, Stan says, “Dude, slow down. I’m not going anywhere.”

He manoeuvres them so they’re not side by side and knee to knee, so he can press Kyle into the mattress just a bit, guide things a little more. He tries out using his weight to hold Kyle in place as he kisses slow and steady. He’s no expert for sure, but it’s how _he_ likes to kiss so they can use it as a starting point at least. The sounds Kyle makes, and the way he seems happy to just cup Stan’s face again and mess with his hair, definitely imply he’s enjoying things.

When he can feel they’re both so hard it’s uncomfortable and his lips are more than a bit numb, Stan rolls off. Except Kyle’s arm like - catches him, and pulls him in, sort of, so they’re still nestled together and warm under the covers.

Stan’s face is resting on Kyle’s shoulder, somehow, which is not a way they’ve ever shared a bed before. Generally, he does prefer to be the big spoon, but this way has its merits. He can feel how uneven Kyle’s breathing is and that he smells the way Kyle always has since they were teenagers, except if Kyle was a little sweaty from making out, which isn’t something Stan has smelt before.

It’s too nice. Way, way too easy. Somewhere, underneath how hard his dick is and zoomy his brain is with kissing for however long that was, his logical brain is working overtime to figure out what the fuck is going on. Sure, he’d figured Kyle might be amenable to some kissing for what he saw as like, passing the time, and staying warm, but _that_? _This?_

“That was....” Kyle starts. He sounds, in short, dazed. “Uh.”

Stan brushes off Kyle’s arm so he can prop himself up on his own arm and get a proper view of what’s going on. Kyle’s face is still pink and his lips are sort of swollen.

Stan, having completely lost his footing in this situation, says, “Eh. That was all right.”

Kyle’s face breaks into a grin and, rolling his eyes, he smacks Stan’s arm out from under him so he drops back down to the mattress. Holding Stan in place, Kyle says, way too fond even though Stan knows, intellectually, that he’s probably one of Kyle’s favourite people in the world, “You’re a bastard.”

Then he takes his turn to press Stan against the mattress and Stan let's him, let's him get his hands up under Stan’s t-shirt this time, and kiss him until he’s one is-that-an-accident-or-on-purpose brush of crotches away from descending into legit grinding. Whatever it would be called. Stan coming in his pants, probably, would be a good name.

Stan, basically, tries really, really hard not to be too wooed by the entire thing and mostly fails.

“Um,” he blurts some minutes or hours later, because Kyle is kissing along his jaw, which leaves his mouth unattended. Always dangerous. His entire body is buzzing. “What is actually going on?”

Kyle stops kissing him, which is probably for the best but really doesn’t feel like it in the moment. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” says Stan. “We’re sort of making out?”

Kyle gets off of Stan, which is even worse, and says, all concerned, “Yes? You kind of initiated the whole thing, dude. Did you not mean to?”

Stan says, “No.”

Looking horrified now, Kyle is on the other side of the bed before Stan can blink. “ _No?_ You didn’t want to be doing that? Dude, what in the fuck, what the fuck-”

Stan desperately grabs for the blankets and, secondarily, for Kyle. “Shit, no! I mean no, I didn’t _not_ mean to.”

“So you mean no you didn’t mean to say you didn’t mean to?”

Stan hazards at a, “... Yes?” And then, because he’s getting the feeling both of their wires are getting crossed all over the place and the chance to do this whole thing again with Kyle is worth the potential awkwardness if he gets shot down, Stan decides to go for broke. “Just to be clear, full disclosure, all of it: I’m gay in the heart for you, dude. Who knows how long since, definitely since before college? But I’m literally fully realising this shit as we speak. Uh. So that was super hot, but it was also like, emotional. I guess.”

Somehow he’s ended up looking at the mattress during all of this because it’s actually a lot of words to say, and if Kyle just thinks he’s good to make out with that’s fine, except for the multitude of ways it isn’t, and will put a massive crack in their relationship which they’re only just managing to build back up, maybe, largely in the space of this one house moving and-

Kyle is like, holding his hand. From across the bed. Stan looks up and Kyle says, like a romcom dream that Stan _doesn’t_ dream of at all, “If you’re gay in the heart, then I have been absolutely gay in the heart since day one.”

“Even though you’re bi?” says Stan, instead of _holy fucking shit what are the odds this is the best day ever._

“Even though maybe _you’re_ bi,” counters Kyle, which Stan agrees is fair enough, but a conversation for another time. Kyle continues, pinker in the face and after some almost-nail-biting and his other hand getting very sweaty in Stan’s, “Zero euphemisms, I’ve had a crush on you, or been in love with you, or whatever you want to call it since we were kids. So the kissing was… also emotional… for me.”

Stan pulls Kyle back so they can lie in the middle again, with maximum blanket and maximum potential-probably-boyfriend contact. “Stop being over there, c’mon. But I really respect you saying that, dude, it looked kind of painful.”

Kyle shrugs. “Just weird to say out loud, after all this time, I guess.” Because they’re chest to chest now, practically right on top of each other, Stan can see the moment the entire situation fully clicks in Kyle’s brain, and watches as Kyle’s goofy smile creeps across his face and sticks there. “Wow. Okay. Nice. Want to make out more?”

Stan is feeling stupidly melty at that smile and, in a brave act of self-preservation, wriggles around so he’s lying with his head on Kyle’s chest instead. This does mean he can’t see Kyle’s face when he says, “I would love to but I am literally going to come in my pants if we do and it’s too cold for that,” which is a shame. He can feel the glugging swallow Kyle does, though, because his head is right under Kyle’s chin.

“You could-” starts Kyle, because he is fundamentally horny, and Stan knew this already but he’s never openly had it directed at him like this.

“No.”

“I have spare underwear.”

The thought of wearing Kyle’s ratty underwear is, unfortunately, uncomfortably erotic. Stan is pretty sure the entire world is turned on its head, though, so that makes sense. “I know, thanks but no thanks. Extra boyfriend points for the offer though.”

And that word shoved in is Stan trying to be subtle, which he learnt from his mother. Kyle’s arm around him squeezes and he doesn’t deny or disagree, so message received and approved on that front, he figures.

Plus, then Kyle says, “This snow blows, we could’ve gone somewhere fun to celebrate all this. In the city.”

Stan doesn’t want to think about the snow, or the world outside the apartment, which is either bad or full of good things he can’t appreciate because of the snow. “Stop talking.” It’s really late, he realises, mid-yawn, but he can’t be bothered to get into a better position to sleep. He doesn’t _want_ to get into one. Kyle’s hand is literally stroking through his hair. “We should sleep and hopefully not die in the night from exposure.”

“Great,” says Kyle, and blows out his vanilla candle.

**-**

“Gay in the heart,” Kyle speaks into the dark sometime later, into the semi-asleep atmosphere. “Thought you were meant to be a lyricist, dude. A poet.”

Because his head is still on his chest, Stan can feel the sheer magnitude of the body-contorting laugh Kyle’s holding back, presumably out of respect for both a dude putting his honest heart on the line, and for how comfortable and warm their current position is.

That’s love, he’s pretty sure.

“Shut up, dick,” he says, but it’s so half-hearted it only makes Kyle wheeze afresh and kiss the top of Stan’s head, like he’s a baby or something, except it makes Stan’s whole heart fizz.

Somewhere along the line, despite this, Stan’s asleep for real.

**-**

In the morning, what feels like early, Stan wakes up to every light on and the pipes thrumming with the central heating. The light coming through the curtains suggests some serious snowfall, but the wind is finally quiet. Kyle is still out cold, except actually probably toasty, since he’s stolen half the blankets. They’ve wriggled around and disentangled and who knows what in the night, Stan’s arm somehow trapped uncomfortably under Kyle’s bony shoulder.

Stan considers getting up to turn everything off – thinking with a wince of Kyle’s bills – or to forage a snack or to find their phones and check the time, but in the end, staying right where he is is too tempting.

“Why are you awake?” Kyle mumbles into the pillows, mostly asleep.

“I’m not,” Stan says nonsensically. “Go back to sleep.”

Honestly, he’s feeling things distinctly dreamlike, so making no sense is fine. Maybe it’s because of the crazy shift of perspective from yesterday morning to today, or maybe it’s the way – in this apartment that’s just Kyle’s so right now is basically just _theirs –_ that the rest of the world seems kind of far away. They’ve got time.

Kyle wheeze-snores happily in his ear.

Maybe, more likely, Stan’s just plain exhausted and should listen to his own advice. He tugs his arm out to freedom, yanks a share of the blankets back, curls up against Kyle’s (slightly gross, sleep-sweaty) back, and is asleep again in minutes.


	2. Chapter 2

When Stan wakes up again he feels straight up disgusting, sweaty and dehydrated and overtired with too much sleep. As amazing as it is to wake up all wrapped up with Kyle, he has almost zero regret in hauling himself out of bed, using the bathroom, and then ignoring the majority-unpacked absolute mess of the apartment to hunt down a tube of toothpaste.

The toothpaste turns out to be packed with the other miscellaneous shit Stan can only assume Kyle chucked together in a box last minute on the day of moving. Right next to it is Kyle’s toothbrush. For a moment Kyle’s words from the night before flash through Stan’s brain: Borrow mine.

Stan squeezes some toothpaste out onto his finger instead and heads back to the bathroom, such a non-room that Stan is already calling it the bathcupboard in his mind. Finger-toothbrush is never the most satisfying experience, but it’ll have to do.

“Stan?”

Stan pokes his head out of the bathcupboard door. “Present.”

Kyle is sitting up in bed, disorientated and the kind of morning-disgruntled Stan knows well. He looks at Stan’s toothpastey finger and says, “I said you could use my toothbrush.” Then he registers that comment fully, grimaces and adds, “Actually, don’t. But you know what I mean.”

Stan blinks at him – because like, he doesn’t know, but okay – and then carries on using his finger.

After some groaning about being awake, Kyle gets up and joins Stan, ushering him out so he can use the bathroom.

Stan takes a moment outside the closed door, mouth full of toothpaste foam Kyle hadn’t given a chance for him to rinse out. He isn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop; it shouldn’t be awkward between them so he’s not going to let it be.

A few minutes later and they’re both standing there staring into the mirror above Kyle’s sink, teeth freshly brushed, practically domestic. Kyle asks: “So we’re not allowing morning breath yet, huh?”

“Don’t know what you’re insinuating, dude. Never had morning breath in my life.” The fact that the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind is a cause for concern for approximately a second before he dismisses it. Whatever. They’ve both puked on each other more times that they can count already.

Kyle smiles, echoes ‘insinuating’ like Stan’s said something funny, and leans in to kiss him. It’s way too minty and probably not meant to lead to anything but Stan is only one dude. One dude with a brand new boyfriend getting close to him in just a t-shirt and underwear.

Like. Stan  _ wants _ it to go somewhere, obviously; when Kyle wanders out of the bathcupboard, Stan finds himself following, hopeful and on the edge of horny.

Instead, Kyle looks at the monstrous task of unpacking that faces them and says, “Ugh. I’m gonna shower.”

“Oh,” says Stan. “Sure.”

Kyle, apparently unaware of Stan’s horniness precipice, just says, “I meant it about sharing stuff, you know,” and then heads off to shower. He gets fully naked before he even steps into the bathcupboard, though, so maybe he’s not as unaware of Stan’s responses as he’d thought.

Despite having just received a fleeting eyeful of Kyle’s dick, what Stan cannot stop looking at in the following moments is Kyle’s underwear, on the floor, in the same pile as the t-shirt Kyle had slept in.

Putting them on would be gross, probably, except for the way it would actually be really hot. Really, really hot. Almost definitely too far for a relationship that’s less than a day old, though, so Stan isn’t going to do it.

Except Kyle had been the one to suggest it yesterday. Maybe not in the way that Stan was thinking about it and maybe not the underwear literally straight off his body, but still. That’s permission, right?

And sure, maybe it’s a kind of out there thing to admit to being into right off the bat, but honesty and starting as you mean to go on and all the rest.

Stan picks up the underwear. They’re just plain navyish boxers, nothing special, but there’s a certain holy grail moment as he puts his leg in the leg holes. And then he has them on and there’s another moment where his head swims because this is  _ Kyle’s underwear _ and it’s like, gently caressing his dick in a way he’s not conscious of his own underwear ever doing.

These heady few seconds are followed by the realisation he’s standing in the middle of this shitty apartment in Kyle’s underwear while Kyle is in the shower and – what? he’s going to act like he isn’t half hard, put them back on the floor and pretend nothing happened? he’s going to lounge on the bed waiting until Kyle comes out and hope to look sexy?

Fuck that. Fuck both of those.

The whole thing suddenly seems like the worst half baked idea ever. But there’s still a strong part of him that doesn’t want to  _ not _ carry it through either, so he leaps back into bed before Kyle can see him and pulls the blankets up to his chin.

Fuck. Stan lays there and feels his heart beating in his throat. Kyle, unaware, sings something garbled and out of tune through a mouthful of shower water a few feet away.

Turns out there’s only so long a dude can lie in his boyfriend’s bed and freak out about things. Stan’s anxiety lasts far less time than Kyle’s shower, so by the time Kyle comes out of the tiny bathcupboard, Stan’s on his phone. He’s texted his mom an update and proceeded to fucking around, having more or less having forgotten he’s wearing anyone’s underwear other than his own.

When he looks up Kyle is wrapped in a towel, which is nice. “Bathroom’s free. Water pressure sucks balls though.”

Stan, unthinking, kicks back the blankets to go shower.

Before he can even actually get out of the bed, Kyle asks, “Is that my underwear?”

Stan looks down at himself. He’d completely forgotten to be sexy about the whole thing. Without that smokescreen there is no doubt that this is  _ weird _ , even if they’ve shared things for years and Kyle specifically said again that sharing was okay. Specifically said sharing  _ underwear _ was okay, even.

That’s beside the point because he’s wearing Kyle’s freshly worn underwear. It should be gross. It  _ is _ gross. It’s also just– really, really doing something for him for some reason. Stan really tries to pretend his dick isn’t getting hard as he replies, “No?”

Kyle blinks, taken aback by the level of brazen lying. “Pretty sure that’s my underwear, dude.”

“It’s not,” says Stan. He grabs the first explanation that comes to mind: “Our moms just got us the same underwear. Uh, at the underwear store.”

“Our moms? The fuck? What, like they co-ordinated on it?” Kyle asks all in one what-the-fuck rush. After a pause, “Your mom still buys your underwear?”

“Like yours doesn’t.”

Kyle is suspiciously silent. “Okay, but you are wearing my underwear. I literally  _ just _ took them off to shower, Stan.”

All eyes on the underwear also means there is no mistaking how much this is turning Stan on. Stan shifts on the bed, considers trying to cover his junk and retain some level of dignity but really it’s a lost cause. Kyle has to accept him for who he is anyway, so he begins, “Look–”

And Kyle blurts, “That is  _ so _ hot.”

“Oh,” says Stan. He hadn’t been prepared for Kyle to find it hot; tolerated it, indulged in it maybe, but not actually be into it. “Uh?”

“I mean–”

“Well–”

“Like–”

Stan can tell they’re getting nowhere anytime soon. He tries out looking cocky instead, lying back more fully against the pillows and asking, hopeful, “Yeah?”

“Dude,” says Kyle, relieved and flushed, and climbs onto the bed. It’s an awkward manoeuvre considering he still has a towel wrapped around his waist. Stan considers tugging it loose right then and there but they’re not even kissing yet. Once they are, his thoughts are quickly occupied with other things.

They’re taking it so, so easy. The immediacy melts away little by little as they kiss, despite both of them still being at least half-hard. Stan can still feel it – the overwhelming urgency to stamp this scenario as confirmed-hot with an orgasm – but it’s not pressing. It’s easy to laugh when Kyle’s towel comes unexpectedly undone, even though seeing him naked a few steps from boning is very different to the millions of other times, and easy to push the towel to the side without going any further.

When Kyle starts to push Stan’s t-shirt up, he pauses mid-shirt removal and asks, “Slow enough for you?”

Stan stares at him. His brain feels under water. “Uh, you can take it off whatever speed you want, man.”

Kyle rolls his eyes. “I mean the whole thing, dumbass.” After he, more unhelpfully than not, helps Stan pull the t-shirt off he explains, “You wanted to go slowly. Before.”

Stan casts his mind back to last night, to a few seconds before where they’d been kissing slow and steady for however long. It feels amazing but now his horniness is rushing back, rapidly outweighing the entire (very enticing) concept of going slow. “That was yesterday.” They do have the deadline of Stan’s mom expecting him home sometime today, too. “Wait. You don’t like slow?”

“Obviously I do,” says Kyle and goes back to the kissing.

It’s as good as before but suddenly Stan is aware of everything outside of it. The sheets under his back are too warm. Every time he moves even a little he’s made aware he’s wearing Kyle’s underwear all over again, except this knowledge combined with the little friction they give isn’t actually enough. Kyle himself is mostly on the bed rather than on top of him, their skin only touching as much as is needed for some very languid kissing.

Stan breaks the kiss. “Kyle.”

“Yeah?”

Stan doesn’t know what he was planning to say. He isn’t sure what he wants to be doing or Kyle to be doing. There are too many possibilities. Something, anything that isn’t anticipation building and building. Before he can figure it out, Kyle’s hand is on Stan’s dick. Not directly or even with a particular pressure, but it’s  _ there _ .

“How’s that?” Kyle asks.

Stan’s sure he says something positive in response but fuck knows what it was. It doesn’t speed Kyle up any – they’re back to kissing like before, except now Stan’s trapped between the not-enough sensations of Kyle’s underwear and Kyle’s hand against him, too.

“Come  _ on _ ,” says Stan some time later when Kyle still hasn’t progressed past the barest impression of touching Stan’s dick. Stan feels like his skin is too tight, like he’s about to burst out of it.

Kyle keeps on kissing him, down his neck to his chest. “I thought we were taking it slow,” he says, all innocent.

Stan flicks the side of Kyle’s neck. It’s ridiculous that this insufferable shit is turning him on. “Fuck off.”

“You were the one that said it first.”

“I don’t remember that at all.”

Kyle moves down the bed.“Well, I’m going to be taking it slow anyway.”

And then, as if to make his point, he puts his mouth on Stan’s dick through the fabric. It’s only just barely, and the fabric is a pretty strong barrier to sensation, but still. Stan squeaks, tries not to knee Kyle in the head and mostly succeeds.

He feels scrambled, his heart pounding. “Come on, come on, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s take it fast.”

“Fast?” Kyle repeats, like he’s never heard the word. Repeats it against Stan’s dick.

The friction, and the fact it’s Kyle’s mouth and it’s Kyle’s underwear, is almost too much. Stan lets Kyle carry on for a little while longer, his breathing shallow and his mind slightly reeling, until he feels what he’s almost sure is Kyle’s tongue against the fabric. Honesty as always, Stan figures, so he tells him, “I’m going to literally come in your underwear, dude.”

“Fuck.” Kyle shivers, the whole in-control act he’s had going on breaking at long last. “Fuck, Stan, you should.”

“Do you want me to?” Stan really, really wants Kyle to want him to.

“Stan.”

“To come in your underwear?” He doesn’t know where the words are coming from.

“ _ Stan _ ,” Kyle says again, and he moves up from kissing Stan on the dick to kissing Stan on the mouth. Stan holds him there, cupping Kyle’s face. His skin is tingling and every miniscule shift either of them makes is bringing him closer to the edge.

He realises for the first time, feeling dumb with it, that Kyle’s grinding his own dick into the bed.

It’s obvious, but it hits Stan for real that Kyle is actually into this, into Stan. God. He can’t wait a moment longer. He pulls back. “Get up here.”

Kyle’s lips are very red, all the turned-on seeming to have hit him in one go. “I _ am  _ up here,” he says, like some kind of a dumbass, eyes still on Stan’s mouth.

Stan huffs. “No, I mean–” He decides to just show Kyle what he means, guiding him so they’re finally –  _ finally _ – lying with Kyle actually on top of him, their dicks pressed together through the fabric of the underwear. Stan holds back a whimper at the first real, full pressure on his dick since they started out. Kyle takes a sharp breath in and, without pause, his hips move in a roll.

“Oh,” says Stan, heat flooding through him all afresh. “You should do that again, dude.”

“Fuck.” Kyle slips his fingers into the waistband of the underwear at Stan’s sides and says, “I can’t  _ believe _ you–”

It’s too much for Stan’s brain to think about. In the rush of actually having Kyle on top of him, he’d almost forgotten about the underwear being Kyle’s. “I get it, I get it, shut up.”

Then they’re doing nothing short of grinding, kissing in a breathless, uncoordinated way. All the measured patience from before goes out the window. The pressure builds and builds until the friction of the fabric just crosses the line into too rough; Stan comes into Kyle’s underwear, stifling any sounds with his hand out of habit he’s never broken.

“Holy shit,” says Kyle. And then a moment or two later he’s coming too, onto the other side of the fabric, Stan having to resist jerking away from the oversensitivity when their dicks brush.

In the aftermath, the apartment is very quiet. They’re breathing heavily, sticky and sweaty and Stan’s somehow managed to get a wedgie, none of which can be sorted with the way they’re lying all caught up together. Stan isn’t a fan of the cooling-come feeling, but he’s not ready to deal with it yet. He feels floaty and  _ good _ , in a way he hasn’t felt for a long time after sex.

Kyle laughs, apparently having the exact same rush. “Fuck, dude, look at us.” He rolls off of Stan, over to the cool, clean side of the bed. They take another moment to catch their breath and then Kyle is lying on his side, facing Stan and grinning. “Well. Who’d’ve known you were such a freak, huh?”

Stan can feel himself going red. “Shut up. You were the one that called it hot.”

Kyle rolls his eyes, like he isn’t going red too. “Okay, whatever. It  _ was  _ hot. Even if I have to shower again now.”

“I’m the one covered in– stuff.” As much as Stan increasingly feels like one big noodle, he takes the opportunity to wriggle out of Kyle’s damp underwear and closer to Kyle himself. “You probably would’ve just wanted to shower again after we finished unpacking all your stuff anyway.”

“Could you not remind me of that for five minutes? This is why I wanted to get it all done yesterday.”

They’re both still way too warm and gross for it, but having his arm around Kyle does feel kind of nice in the aftermath. Stan does snort at the implication that Kyle had foreseen them both getting too horny over Stan wearing his underwear, though. “We could share my shower?” he suggests.

“If there’s enough space in that thing,” Kyle muses.

Stan adds, sly, “I would have to borrow some spare underwear after though.”

“Oh my God.”

“Maybe even share your shower gel before, too. Your shampoo.”

Kyle elbows him hard. “Shut up.”

“Think you can handle that, dude?” Stan asks, shifting so they’re resting more comfortably together.

“You’re a shithead, get out of my apartment,” says Kyle, but neither of them move to get out of bed just yet.


End file.
